The partial acquittal and mistrial of John Edwards was a major defeat for the Justice Department and the beleaguered Public Integrity Section — the same section involving in the Stevens trial debacle. However, as previously discussed, the case against Edwards was in my view an over-reach for the Justice Department which (again) appeared more motivated by the public outcry over Edwards’ infidelity than the actual statutory authority. The jury was correct in its ruling and showed again how average American citizens can be counted on to look beyond the sensational and disturbing conduct of a defendant to reach the right conclusion.
Edwards was guilty of being a cad and a despicable person — two offenses not found in the criminal code. The Public Integrity Section team however dragged out every prejudicial element to parade his conduct before the jury — conduct immaterial to the charges. It did not work. The jury looked beyond the terrible betrayal of his wife who was dying of cancer and the salacious details of his mistress who treated Edwards aides like bell boys and maids.
The acquittal on the campaign finance charge was particularly important. That was the heart of the case against Edwards and the count that many of us questioned as an over-reach of the law. The $200,000 from heiress Rachel “Bunny” Mellon was deposited after Edwards dropped out of the presidential race. The deadlock on the remaining counts shows the weakness in the government’s case. Prosecutors start such trials with a huge advantage. Despite the formal presumption of innocence, most jurors assume the defendant is there for a good reason. When you add the sensational details highlighted by the government counsel, it becomes a deadly mix for the defense.
I observed during the trial that the strategy of the defense seemed to me to be a hung jury strategy. Resting the case early seemed to avoid the risk of a backlash from putting Edwards or his mistress on the stand in favor of relying on just enough doubt to divide the jury. It was a strategy based on the belief that the government would not retry the case after spending millions on a dubious case. That gamble clearly paid off.
Source: Washington Post
I think Edwards was targeted by a honey trap. It worked. He was up and coming and probably could have gone much further than vp candidate, but he was arrogant by his own admission, got trapped and his political career is over. The criminal charges were just insurance that it’s over. The collapse of his marriage was just collateral damage.
All’s fair in love and war if you are willing to take the risk associated with entering into the snake pit. Both naivety and arrogance appear to be necessary traits in addition to other even less desirable attributes.
Does anyone really think Edwards “won” this case? He looks a lot like King Pyrrhus to me.
Can you imagine how much time, money and effort is spent fighting over the the power that the treasury offers to who controls it allocations. Now wonder this country is broke and that we misallocate these resources to such an extent.
These trials border on propaganda: the sense is that the justice department accurately detects misconduct and that the fearless media is free to expose such misconduct. Bill Clinton’s blowjob and John Edward’s mistress are media scapegoats meant to reinforce the perception that we hold our officials to a high standard of conduct.
But the real slime goes unreported.
It’s kind of a public secret that ambassadors and officials routinely frequent underage sex parties. It was mentioned in connection with Dominic Strauss Kahn, and was mentioned with Silvio Burlesconi, but is never discussed as part of a systematic pattern of illegality and immorality.
Craig J. Spence was a blip in one newspaper. Lawrence E. King has recently been purged from Wikipedia. Roland Carnaby had some shady connections to Deborah Jeane Palfrey. Nobody has heard of Keola Childs. Scott Walker aide Brian Pierick was recently convicted for soliciting a male minor.
The whole Republican gay-bashing repressed homosexuality angle is always underplayed. Jeff Gannon in the bush White House was just a blip as well…
I think this case demonstrates how wasteful and hypocritical the justice system can become when partisan politics enters the equation. As evidence, I will replace the proper name from one sentence of this post and let you decide if I’m on the right track.
“However…the case against [Clinton] was in my view an over-reach for the Justice Department which (again) appeared more motivated by the public outcry over [Clinton’s] infidelity than the actual statutory authority.”
@BarkinDog: It depends on when the judge did that. Before the case is turned over to the jury, it is the judge’s job to prevent jury members from discussing the case with each other.
Once they are in the jury room, it is the judge’s job to answer their queries on protocol. The jury is not supposed to be a competition between red flags and green flags (after the stoplight colors, nothing else), it is supposed to be a collaborative effort to get to the most probable truth. When the judge is made aware of circumstances in which it has devolved into reds versus greens, it is her job to answer their questions in a way that can get deliberations back onto a useful track.
It does not influence the verdict either way to do that.
I believe that the case demonstrates the necessity for the jury system. I felt that the judge was sticking her nose into the jury’s domain when she started telling them not to meet in groups and to do this and do that. The judges robes should not intrude in deliverations inside or outside the courtroom after the case is submitted, or into the jury room ever.
I am no campaign finance expert, but the case really seemed like a stretch. Abbe Lowell earned his [probably astronomical] fee here.Everything was so carefully orchestrated, from the daughter’s opening statement on. Edwards was about as invisible as a defendant could be. Too bad DOJ resources were so badly wasted. This case may have been started under the Bush DOJ, but the Obama DOJ pursued it and should take the blame for this prat fall.
What Swarthmore Mom said. The mistake the Justice Department made was keeping Bush appointees on the payroll for more than one second after the inauguration.
A couple of things. I don’t believe that effective campaign reform can really ever exist. People have the “right” to support the candidates of their choice and they can generally find a legal way around any law to affect their favored candidate or position. Don’t kid yourself, there is a lot of cold hard blackmarket cash in the system also. Secondly, I believe that uncovering and prosecuting the political corruption in our system would do more to solve the problem than campaign reform. As often times shown in numerous issue at law, the lack of justice ends up being a huge problem. Perhaps having such few people (the Judges) make such important decisions that affect our society is not a good idea and therefore the numbers of qualified people making these important determinations needs to be expanded. It is interesting that the Judicary even going back to the monarchs were small groups enjoying high levels of collusion with the rulers. The term Rubber Stamp, became a slogan of the disinfranchised, for when the Judiciary would always rule in the governments favor against the Citizens.
Those who have criticized the North Carolina brand of enforcing federal law, in the Edwards case, are bolstered by another “imaginative” North Carolina legal outlook.
This one is broader in scope than a federal election, even though it is a state law, not a federal law.
The NC law being forged makes it illegal to say the ocean level will rise more than 8 inches, even though neighboring Virginia has already had a 1.5 foot sea level rise.
Dementia within institutions is for real people, causing deluded imaginings and denials of reality, based upon sayings of local yokels.
hey Irma your link goes to a Kindle sporting Harry Potter.
http://goo.gl/djGMd
Juries are usually pretty smart. Jurors who were interviewed this morning said the prosecution simply did not meet the
burden of proof and that the star prosecution witness was not credible. Prosecutorial over reach combined with the obvious imbalance of resources in the government’s favor put everyone at risk especially “targets” who cannot afford good and well resourced counsel.
Unfortunately the spending of millions on prosecutions like this while leaving many who whose conduct has caused real damage does little to convince taxpayers of the system’s “integrity”.
The investigation was originally spearheaded by George Holdings, a George W. Bush appointee. He manged to hang on and avoid being replaced until 2011 when Edwards was indicted. He then announced that he was running for congress and recently won the GOP primary.
@anon: I do not watch video or listen to audio at work. By choice, but also out of caution; my office is not sound-proofed. (Neither is anybody else’s office, to my knowledge).
Personally, I think there was some shady business going on in Edward’s campaign, anytime people are building houses and living in luxury with no apparent source of funds other than solicited contributions by a politician, I suspect shady business.
However, I also think this was motivated largely by moral outrage over Edward’s lying hypocrisy, and they over-reached and that back-fired with the jury. One good count would have been enough to present, I believe.
I do not really suspect partisan politics here. If anything, I would suspect intentional bungling on the part of the Prosecution so the overlords can put a checkmark in the “hey, we tried, and we do not excuse this behavior!” box and mollify those accusing them of covering up for corruption.
Of course it was fortuitous they found a scumbag that was already washed up and out of the game, no sacrifice of a viable politician was needed.
David Frum suggests the verdict opens the doors wide open to “what people who might be president can do with money that donors give them.”
What he neglects to mention in relation to campaign finance reform is that this case strengthens the case for reinstating limits on campaign contributions.
Tony,
Yes.
Tony, IIRC from what I remember last night, Melanie Sloan of CREW seems to feel there were more Scaredy Cat Presidential Donkeys involved than Republican Elephants:
http://www.npr.org/2012/05/31/154111469/ethics-group-head-on-edwards-verdict
@Gene: Is that elephant just a circus elephant, or a GOP icon?
Although I too find Edwards to be a cad and a despicable person, I’m glad to see the DOJ’s overreaching and obviously politically motivated prosecution fail. Especially since they could have spent the money wasted on the Edwards prosecution to prosecute pols who committed Federal crimes and confessed publicly to doing so. For example, ordering torture. The Edwards prosecution smelled of elephants, moldy canvas and greasepaint from the get go.